Dhani Strums His Way Out Of Philly

Finally! After signing with the team in 2004 Dhani Jones has been cut, 2 days after the Eagles drafted linebacker Stewart Bradley.

The team isn't jumping the gun in any sense, guaranteeing that Bradley will pan out at all, but it's obvious that there's no real reason to even keep Jones around. Currently at the SAM position we have a few different options, either rookie Stewart Bradley, or 2nd year player Chris Gocong. Mixed up in the rest of the LB corps there is Omar Gaither, Matt McCoy, Trot, and Takeo Spikes, but it's not expected that any of those guys will be playing strong side linebacker.

Jones has primarily gained notoriety through his strumming the guitar/banjo celebration, which wasn't often seen because he didn't make many notable plays. But it was always guaranteed that on that one tackle he made in a game, he would definitely find time to celebrate.

The bow tie guy definitely is smart, working his way onto different talk shows and developing a TV personality but there's not enough room for that on a serious team that needs focused players.

When you play in the current NFL, defending against tight ends is such a crucial job, as they have really developed into key players on an offense within the past 10 years. So many teams have their reliable receiving threat right at TE, and they see multiple touches a game. That definitely is the case for the Eagles who face off against 3 very good players in Jason Witten, Jeremy Shockey, and Chris Cooley 6 times total a year.

Though we've done a decent job against TE's in the past the most important position when trying to shut down a TE is strong side LB and Jones has definitely been lacking. Jim Johnson seems to really focusing his efforts this year on containing that position by the drafting of a big, physical SAM LB in Stewart Bradley.

With that in mind, we had seen as much out of Jones as he had to offer and there was no potential to even grow upon. That leaves us with a big question mark on SAM, seeing who will step up in Bradley or Gocong. This is when we sit and wait.

The Very Beginning

During Kevin Kolb's introduction to the Philadelphia media he came across as very modest, much more humble than a guy like Brady Quinn, who we watched parade around every sports show in America trying to up his draft stock all offseason. Coming from a less hyped up background Kolb admitted to being shocked, along with everyone else, when his name was called on Saturday.

There might have been an initial adverse reaction to the selection but no matter how people have reacted, Kevin Kolb is a Philadelphia Eagle and was our first selection, there's no going back. So you look towards the future, which is exactly what the Eagles did when they decided to draft this Quarterback.

As we have all heard a million times, Andy Reid's forte seems to be working with Quarterbacks. He started his career as an assistant coach, than specifically the Quarterbacks coach, with the Green Bay Packers. Andy's first year with the team was Brett Favre's first year as well and the two worked well together with Reid being very influential in Favre's career.

Then move onto the Philadelphia Eagles, Andy was hired in 1999, that same year he drafted rookie QB Donovan McNabb out of Syracuse University with the 2nd overall pick. Reid took that opportunity to begin to mold Donovan into a franchise QB for the team, and though we have no Super Bowl rings to prove complete success, there has been a consistent stream of winning seasons and playoff appearances.

Now we have yet another beginning, one a little different than the McNabb situation that we began with 9 years ago. In 1999 the team wanted to start winning ASAP and needed to do so if Reid had any shot at staying around in Philadelphia more time was taken with McNabb than say Eli Manning who saw playing time, and got the crap beat out of him, in his first ever NFL game.

This team still has their franchise QB, there is no desperation in rushing Kevin Kolb to the starting lineup. Reid has most likely, his dream situation, getting to have a QB that he believes in on the sideline but has plenty of work to still do until he can make it in the NFL.

There is not clock ticking on when Kolb will get his first start, if I had any say in it, it wouldn't be for at least 2 years. At this point we hope that the perfect situation arises, McNabb comes back this season completely healed and leads us on to many more winning seasons, no more health problems. Finally when the time comes and his career winds down, Kolb will be fully groomed, awaiting his moment in the spotlight.

Of course the storybook ending in that situation would be for Donovan to decide to retire on his own terms, blah blah blah, but you know that would never happen considering this is the NFL. No one is actually looking that far ahead now but the point is that if McNabb continues to be a Pro-Bowl QB, Kolb will have a great player to learn from.

We have no idea what is going to happen with McNabb or Kolb, it all just depends but there is also even the option of McNabb continuing success for many many years, well than you have a valuable player in Kolb that you can just trade away, similar to what the Falcons just did with Matt Schaub. In Atlanta the Falcons spent a 3rd round pick on Schaub in 2004, during the preseason as well as the games where Mike Vick has been injured, Schaub saw some playing time and made a good impression around the league.

As it became clear that the team, no matter how well or poor you believe Mike Vick has played, the team was loyal to Vick. Schaub, though he might have potential to be a great player, was not going to see starting time in Atlanta so the propositions for him to be traded began around last season and continued all the way until this offseason until finally the Falcons traded him to the Houston Texans.

With teams in the NFL being so desperate for a solid starting QB, the Texans gave up a lot for Schaub, sending 2 second round picks (one in this draft and one in '08) as well as swapping 1st round picks, which moved the Falcons 2 spots higher in this past weekends draft. That's a lot of value for a player that has only started 2 games in his 3 year career.

The stark contrast, one that I don't even want to think about, would be if McNabb is unable to come back from this injury or maybe comes back but than another serious injury brings him down yet again. Whatever happens, you just hope that by that point in time Kolb would be ready to take over. The transition from QB to QB would be much smoother considering that Kolb was drafted by Reid and hopefully given plenty of time to be coached up and worked into the system.

Just look at it like this: worse case scenario, Kolb never pans out. Right now we're sitting pretty with a great QB ahead of schedule in his rehab along with 2 quality back ups in Holcomb and Feeley, and a possible "QB of the future" preparing to hold the clipboard for a few seasons. If the Kolb thing doesn't work out we just realize that we wasted a 2nd round pick, probably passing on a guy that does turn out to be in the Pro-Bowl, that wouldn't be the first time that's happened. At least if it came to that, Kolb being a bust, we didn't waste a 1st round pick on him the way we've wasted picks on Freddie Mitchell and Jerome McDougle.

All of this is way off in the future. The reality is just that the front office has played out all of these scenarios in their heads, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

It's going to be a very long time before we actually know how Kevin Kolb is going to pan out but when his number is called whether it be one or multiple years from now, you just hope he was given enough time to ready himself for that moment.

The preparation begins now, Kolb has a clean slate with which to build his NFL career and Andy Reid has a guy that he will try to turn into a franchise QB, given the opportunity to take over once this current starting Quarterback's time is up, which hopefully won't be for many more years.

Review of Day 2

Rounds 4-7 of the draft are a lot more understated than the hype that surrounds Day 1. From one perspective it makes it much easier for the players who are being drafted, there is a lot less expectation to live up to, but along with that they are given less of an opportunity to prove themselves because there is not as much invested in them as someone that is drafted in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd rounds.

The Eagles had 4 draft picks to close out the draft and went for 2 defensive backs, a tight end, and a half back.

Starting off the day was free safety/cornerback C.J. Gaddis out of Brian Dawkins' alma mater, Clemson University. Gaddis was primarily drafted as a free safety and with the departure of Michael Lewis to the 49ers this offseason there is a need for depth at the position. As of right now Quintin Mikell is here to stay, having just signed a new contract earlier this offseason and Sean Considine is back after a mediocre to below average showing last season after getting the starting job when Michael Lewis was benched. With Dawkins under contract for the next 2 seasons it seems that Gaddis could quite possibly be his predecessor.

Three picks after Gaddis was selected, the Eagles took tight end Brent Celek who enters a situation where L.J. Smith is in the final year of his contract and back up Matt Schobel had an inconsistent first year in Philadelphia. Schobel struggled in training camp and made key mistakes in games, but ended up seeing the ball more once Jeff Garcia took over at QB. He proved that he can play the position, but overall has not been reliable.


The other defensive back that was taken was Rashad Barksdale. It was expected that the Eagles would draft a cornerback this season, especially with the absence of Rod Hood who signed with the Arizona Cardinals. Hood seemed to hang around in Philadephia as long as he could, he was extremely loyal to the team despite the fact that he could have left last season or even protested being franchised last year, which seems to be the popular thing for players to do nowadays. But Hood stayed true to the team and played his heart out, proving to everyone that he was a starting caliber player with just less opportunity since he was behind Sheppard and Brown in the depth chart.

Closing out this years draft was Nate Iiloa from Hawaii a very unique player. When you see his listed height, 5'9" you wouldn't really think of him as a power back, Westbrook's got an inch on him. Also when the statistics show that Iiloa left Hawaii being the all time leading receiver among running backs, you see a similarity to Westbrook. But the similarities end right when you move across the screen and see Nate's weight: 245 pounds, it's easy to see that this halfback is a little different than the guys currently on the roster.

Considering he's a 7th round pick he has a lot of growing to do and is a long shot to make the roster. But training camp is the place where the name on the back of your jersey does not matter, it all just comes down to how you play in comparison to the guys vying for your job.

1 QB, 1 LB, 1 DE, 2 HB's, 2 DB's, and 1 TE: a productive draft to say the least.

As of right now these players should only be known by their position, they will be thrown in a heap of players who all want to be apart of this years 53 man roster. Not all of the players drafted this weekend will be on this team or even connected to this franchise by the time we play the Packers in Week 1 but right now they all have a fresh start.

Out of this day 2 we could find an Ike Reese (5th round), Cecil Martin (6th), Seth Joyner (8th), or Clyde Simmons (9th) but along with that optimism is the reality that within this group there will be at least a couple of Freddie Milons, Na Browns, and many other countless names that never seemed to develop into something on the field.

Years from now we hope that some of these guys are still around, even better would be that they're stars, on this team. But that's for the future to determine, today they are rookies that have their careers to play for and though it might seem they have reached the promise land by being drafted, that promise land can quickly disappear if they are not committed or ready for the NFL.

After Sleeping On It

First there was an initial shock that resonated through the draft, definitely perplexing the analysts as well as fans around the city as to why Kevin Kolb was drafted. But now as the shock has worn off a little bit I'm trying to look at it from the Eagles perspective and it is becoming clearer why this move was made.

Panic shouldn't erupt in the mind of Donovan McNabb, this move was not made to put pressure the current QB, it seems that a player just fell into the teams lap that they honestly felt they could not pass on. This year was unique in the sense that we did not have a specific position that we were desperate to draft. Often a teams strategy seems to be that they will draft the best person on the board with their first pick, sometimes leaning towards a position that will make more of an immediate impact, but in an ideal situation they get to draft the best player that also will be able to quickly infiltrate into their system.

The only exception to that theory is when a QB comes down the line, if a team has a franchise QB, they aren't going to invest a lot of money into another one. A perfect example of that happened yesterday when the team that most have predicted to take Brady Quinn, the Browns, passed on him, Quinn just free falled through the 1st round. There were plenty of teams who had a shot at Quinn between the #3 spot where the Browns passed on him and the #22 spot where they ended up trading up to get him, but those 18 teams all felt secure enough with their current QB's that they simply didn't have room on the roster for Quinn.

Initially, no matter how much the Eagles might have liked Kolb, I never would have expected them to take him simply because we already have that franchise QB. But at a second glance you can see where the team is coming from, McNabb is 30 years old and coming off of a very serious knee injury. The front office seems to be resonating that this is not a hint that McNabb's rehab is not going well, they actually are saying he's ahead of schedule, but no matter how that rehab is going it would be ignorant to pass on Kolb (who they reportedly had rated higher than Quinn) when they had him rated so highly and there QB isn't in the most secure position right now.

There's nothing we can really do to judge whether Kolb will be a great, mediocre, or bust player, we'll have to wait years to figure that all out. Right now though we just see that the team is investing in the future, they are not pushing McNabb out the door in any sense, but they're just playing smart.

Years from now we could look back at this move and say, "What the heck happened to that Kolb guy?" but for some reason, maybe I'm just drinking even more of the Kool-Aid than usual, but I am really starting to believe that this pick really has the potential of paying off big time.

For people to say that Kolb was drafted because maybe Donovan won't be healthy enough to start the season, that's ridiculous because no matter what happens with McNabb's knee right now, there's no way that if he doesn't play, Kevin Kolb will be the starting QB in Week 1. If McNabb's not healthy we'll see Feeley or Holcomb suiting up.

As I talked about yesterday, with Kolb here there's uncertainty as to who stays, Feeley or Holcomb. Ideally it seems that the team would want to keep Feeley around considering after Kolb was drafted Reid made it clear that Feeley is the #2 QB. Just keep in mind that during this 2nd day of the draft there quite possibly could be a scenario that would send Feeley to another team for a draft pick or two, you never know.

Despite being very frustrated when I first heard Kevin Kolb's name being read at the podium, after sleeping on it, I am starting to really feel good about this situation. No pressure on Donovan, Kolb is going to be given a lot of time to develop and work his way onto a role on this team, but in the future he could end up being our guy. As I've said before, we love to dream about a new QB when he's drafted, it always seems like the QB on the bench is made into a super star just because people haven't seen him screw up yet but for now we have plenty of reasons to be optimistic. This is yet again another move that the Eagles are making to keep us in the hunt 5 years from now.

This isn't so bad after all.

Review Of Day 1

The surprise came with the Eagles 1st pick selection of QB Kevin Kolb. Definitely unexpected for the team to go for a QB so early in the draft, especially with that QB being Kolb considering there were 3 other QB's still available that were ranked higher on a majority of draft boards. We have seen countless times though that those draft boards can often be wrong, we truly won't know the answers to all of these questions for years.

After the move for Kolb was made Andy Reid already made it clear through an interview on NFL Network as well as ESPN that this move had nothing to do with Donovan McNabb or his job security. Of course Andy is going to say all of the right things, he almost always does, it's just such a odd situation that there is a lot of speculation into why this decision was made. Coach Reid is preaching that Kolb was just too good of a player to pass up and considering we had no dire needs to be filled, he felt it was an opportune time to just take a guy, who the Eagles believed, to be the best on the board.

Once again, I will evaluate each position as this offseason drags on, so I'll try to not elaborate too much yet but Andy said that the #2 position is A.J. Feeley's, that leads me to believe that Holcomb might be one of the shortest tenured Eagles.

Deeper into the draft 3 other players were picked, finishing up the 2nd round after Kolb was defensive end Victor Abiamiri. This was the position that I thought the teams first pick would be spent on, they opted to focus on the D-line a little later than I expected but I'm definitely intrigued by Abiamiri's size. Stacking up at 6'4" Victor is around the same height as Jevon Kearse, bringing that big and physical pass rush which is a nice change up from the team generally drafting smaller D-linemen.

With Abiamiri in town it seems to me that Jerome McDougle's fate is sealed. Many people proclaimed him a bust years ago, I took a lot longer to give up on the guy, but after another season battling an injury while also having a complete lack of production, he should be gone by September.

In the 3rd round there were 2 more draft picks, first one being LB Stewart Bradley. Described by Andy Reid, among others, as a "true SAM linebacker" which currently throws him into the competition with Takeo Spikes (we're not sure what LB spot he'll play at yet), Dhani Jones and last year pick Chris Gocong. Though Andy said he is pleased with Gocong coming off of the injury he had last year, I think with the way we saw Gocong struggle during training camp last year in his position switch to OLB from DE, there needed to be more depth brought in.

The last pick of the day for the Eagles was the funnest of the draft so far, RB Tony Hunt from Penn State. It's always from bringing in a Penn State guy just because there is a lot more of a connection from the fans who often have more knowledge on a state college player than any other pick that was made, I wasn't expecting to actually know who are final 3rd round selection was going to be.

Hunt brings more of the work horse, hard nosed mentality to our running back group which a lot of people have been calling for every single offseason. A bigger stature than the current backs on the roster: Westbrook, Buck, and Moats, Hunt makes things a lot more interesting. The team has often struggled and been criticized for the lack of production in 3rd and short/goalline situations where it seemingly would be easiest to just pound the ball through a defense. The hope with Hunt is that he would be able to fill that alternate back role, stepping in a few times during a game just to shoulder those important short yardage moments.

Overall I feel like this draft has created so many questions about the futures of some veterans on this team.

• The back up QB spot has definitely been shaken up which will eventually result in the departure of either Feeley or Holcomb
• Still no decision as to where Takeo Spikes will be starting, which creates even more confusion about Stewart Bradley's role and the futures of Dhani Jones and Chris Gocong
• Is the Ryan Moats experiment over? So much speed in that little frame but through these past 2 years we've been very disappointed, does the drafting of a bigger guy in Hunt push the struggling Moats or injury prone Buck out the door?

So many questions, so many days until they will be answered. We have a very long time until an NFL game is to be played, the speculation and predictions are swarming now with many of them coming straight from here.

Not Enough Room

Donovan McNabb, A.J. Feeley, Kelly Holcomb, and Kevin Kolb. Not enough room for 4 QB's on a roster, someone has to leave. It's obvious that two people are eliminated from that conversation, McNabb (no matter what you want to say about his future, his health, whatever, there are millions of dollars wrapped up in him) and Kevin Kolb (why would they draft him in the 2nd round just to cut him a few months later?).

So now it comes down to Kelly Holcomb and A.J. Feeley. There are a few possible scenarios.

Maybe, complete speculation, the resigning of A.J. Feeley to a long term deal this offseason was all a show, just a way to kick Jeff Garcia out the door. Had the Eagles let Garcia go without making any investment into the back-up QB position people would have been swarming even more than they did after Garcia left the team. Quite possibly the Feeley move was just made to shut people up for a few months.

Also in a similar scenario, maybe the Eagles legitimately signed Feeley knowing they had to make some commitment to the 2nd string QB position with Garcia leaving and Feeley was the best option at the time. But once they were able to get Holcomb in the trade with the Bills, they decided they didn't need Feeley around any longer.

In all honesty though, I'm completely clueless as to what is going to happen.

At this point I can't tell if this has all been calculated or if maybe they truly just liked Kevin Kolb that much that they felt they couldn't pass on him. Seems hard to believe. To me, the name Kevin Kolb means absolutely nothing. As I scramble to acquire information on this guy in an effort to be less confused as to why this decision was made, I still sit here confused.

You would think that if the front office was planning on trading down and drafting a QB from the very beginning they would have gone for the more obvious pick, Beck out of BYU. But maybe they see something special in Kolb that they didn't want to pass up, I have no idea.

I'm extremely interested to see how this is going to play out. There's not enough room for both Holcomb and Feeley, is there a plan as to where one of these guys is going to go or will one just be a casualty during training camp?

What The....

Shocked. At first when news rang out that the Eagles were trading their 1st round pick to the Cowboys for a 2nd, 3rd, and 5th I knew it wouldn't be a very popular move among fans considering a 1st round pick is much more exciting, but things seemed to get even worse after that move. It was understandable that the Eagles didn't have any dire needs that the draft would be able to address so they felt more comfortable just trading down and picking up a few more picks in the process. But I had no idea that the 2nd round pick we acquired from the Cowboys was going to be used to select a Quarterback.

Just looking at the position alone, investing money, especially your first pick of the day on a QB sends a wrong message to many people and leaves way too much room for interpretation. The problem that now exists is the questioning about why the Eagles would select a QB so high in the draft when they already have a franchise guy in McNabb. Now with Kevin Kolb being selected it raises questions about Donovan's current health (is rehab looking bleaker than reported), his future with the franchise (why invest in the future so early), and even the roles of Kelly Holcomb and A.J. Feeley.

The depth at QB seemed to be fine to me, the Eagles had signed A.J. Feeley to a long term deal prior to the opening of free agency which lead Jeff Garcia right out the door. Than more recently we saw a trade bringing Kelly Holcomb to Philadelphia, now with moves being made to bring in 2 guys to back up Donovan, why would a 2nd round pick be spent on yet another Quarterback?

There are so many questions that the front office and the entire franchise has opened themselves up to, it really is ridiculous from that standpoint. They had to know in that draft room, when they decided to take a QB, that they were going to have hell to pay with the Philadelphia media and fans. Here comes the criticism.

I'm Thinking DE

I'm not an expert on drafts in any sense, my attention is tuned to the NFL all year and so the only information I learn about college players is from what the media tells me. The only thing I have my mind set on as the Eagles approach today, the 2007 NFL Draft, is that there are 2 positions in which I feel they will draft first.

The popular prediction from fans seems to be that the Eagles will look towards maybe getting a running back or I've even heard wide receiver, but I usually think those are more so hopes than actual predictions. As a fan a running back is a much more "fun" position to draft considering it's very easy to see their development throughout the year, the stats will quickly tell the story, and people want to see a 1st round pick have as much opportunity as possible to score touchdowns and have flashy success.

In reality though the Eagles have shown they aren't going to draft one of those offensive positions in the first round, it's all about building up the offensive and defensive lines. Just from looking at recent history where you see names such as Shawn Andrews, Mike Patterson and Broderick Bunkley, that seems to be where they are going to look once again this year.

Even from that perspective, I think that the defensive line is the way to go especially keyed towards defensive ends. Though the defensive end position might seem to have some depth right now between Jevon Kearse, Darren Howard, Juqua Thomas, Trent Cole, and Jerome McDougle there are a lot of question marks within those 5 players. Without going into a whole position analysis, which I will do for each position after the draft, we have some very good players on that line but there isn't a lot of security on how they will play.

Jevon Kearse is the most obvious, coming off of a very serious knee injury that he suffered in Week 2 of the 2006 season. That injury that placed him on IR was to his left knee, there was some confusion in the media as to how serious the injury was and if there were tears to ligaments or just sprains but whatever happened, it is taking a lot of time to recover from. Dealing with any knee injury, just like with Donovan McNabb right now, we can't rely upon Kearse being ready for the start of the season and we saw last year the drop in defensive line play (excluding the 7 sacks against Drew Bledsoe in Week 8) after he was done for the season. So there needs to be some addition to that line especially if Kearse isn't ready to go.

Darren Howard didn't have a terrible year but he didn't really prove to anyone that he was worthy of the free agent contract he signed. When Kearse was on the field everyone played better since they were seeing less attention from the opposing line and Howard really benefited from that. If that pair can get back together this season, the future looks a lot brighter.

There's also Juqua Thomas who signed a contract extension this season, someone who really has made a nice role for himself on this defense. Than along with Thomas is Trent Cole who has showed tremendous potential but just like in 2005, Cole faced a challenge when he was forced to become an every down defensive end once Kearse got hurt. If we want to see success from Trent we can not rely upon him to be an ever down player, he really should just rotate in on 3rd downs and certain passing situations since he's thrives in the pass rush.

Now is McDougle, it's very fitting that we're talking about him on the day of the draft considering after hanging on for so long it seems definite that he is a draft bust after selecting him as a 1st round pick in 2003. If the Eagles do select a defensive end with the 1st pick than McDougle's fate is sealed, which actually seems to be imminent even if a 2nd day pick is spent on a DE.

Like I said earlier, I don't know the players that are coming out of college very well. I just listen to what the media tells everyone and see how they evaluate the incoming rookies. So knowing that I don't have much knowledge on the specific names that people are throwing out there.